1. Learning Computational Thinking
through VIEW
The VIEW Team
Department of Computer Science
Wayne State University
Detroit, Michigan, USA
viewsystem.org

2. What is computational thinking?
 "Computational Thinking is the thought
processes involved in formulating problems
and their solutions so that the solutions are
represented in a form that can be effectively
carried out by an information-processing
agent. (Cuny, Snyder, Wing)
 Thinking skills, not programming skills, as
fundamental as reading and writing in today’s
society,
 For each field and everybody, not just for
computer professionals.

3. What is VIEW?
 A free online e-learning gateway for computational
thinking for K-16 students
 Innovation of VIEW: represent computational thinking
as visual scientific workflows, thinking becomes dragand-drop and connecting…
 One can learn many computational thinking through
VIEW: elementary arithmetic, Boolean
algebra, relational algebra, and more…
 But how?

4. Kids can do it, so you can do it!

5. A screenshot of VIEW

6. Exercise 1: Create the first workflow

7. Step 1
Drag and drop value one twice

8. Step 2
Drag and drop module Add

9. Step 3
Drag and drop an output Stub

10. Step 4
Link inputs and outputs to module Add

11. Step 5
Save the workflow as, say example1

12. Step 6 (Last step)
Run the workflow to get result.

13. To create a new workflow

14. Exercise 2: create a workflow of two modules

15. Step 1
Drag and drop input values, output stub, and modules

16. Step 2
Link them into a workflow (outputs to inputs)

17. Step 3
Run the workflow to get result.

18. To create a new workflow

19. Exercise 3: a more complicated workflow
What if I cannot find the value (say 93) that I need?

20. Step 1
Click the “+” icon to register a new value, click register

21. Step 2
Give a name, and then value, to register for 93.

22. Step 3
Drag and drop the new value 93 (at the bottom)

23. Step 4
Continue to create a workflow and run it.

24. Send feedback to VIEW team
Use command feedback to send feedback to the VIEW team.
Click the lens icon and see the change of the status bar.

25. The iR2D2 Model
Reading
Doing
Interaction
Displaying
Reflecting